Zynga buys Draw Something maker OMGPop

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Zynga is moving fast to snap up one of the most buzzed-about gaming apps since "Angry Birds." The company said Wednesday it is buying OMGPop, the maker of hit game "Draw Something."

Launched just six weeks ago, Draw Something has already been downloaded 35 million times. It currently tops both the paid and free (for an ad-supported version) app bestseller lists in Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iTunes App Store and Google's (GOOG, Fortune 500) Play store.

The game lets users doodle and sketch while other players guess what they've drawn. The app stores are filled with gleeful testimonials about its addictive joys.

Draw Something is by far the biggest hit from OMGPop, a six-year-old company that has pivoted several times in search of a breakout hit. One billion drawings have been created in the last week -- more than 3,000 new per second at the game's peak.

CNNMoney caught up with OMGPop CEO Dan Porter the day before the Zynga deal was announced.

"You can go along for three or four years with no success, and then one day you can open the door and crazy things can happen," Porter said of Draw Something's sudden success.

Without commenting directly on Zynga, Porter said he would only be interested in being acquired by a company that would let OMGPop keep experimenting.

"We took a real big risk with this game, and we created something that's very different than any game out there," he said."For us, it's 'who is going to let us keep making out-of-the-box games like that?' Because that's what's interesting."

In a conference call on Wednesday following the acquisition news, Porter said: "It was clear to me from the beginning that Zynga got what we wanted to do."

With a price tag rumored to be around $200 million, OMGPop is the biggest acquisition yet for Zynga (ZNGA), which likes to buy up promising ventures. It spent $105 million on those deals over the past two years, it said in a recent regulatory filing.

Zynga is based in San Francisco. OMGPop will remain at its headquarters in New York. Porter said that he plans to stay with the company as general manager of Zynga New York and looks forward to turning New York into "a new hotbed" for gaming.